{"id":82425,"date":"2017-07-04T22:51:41","date_gmt":"2017-07-05T02:51:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/?p=82425"},"modified":"2017-07-04T21:11:21","modified_gmt":"2017-07-05T01:11:21","slug":"sharf-ready-for-20th-world-maccabiah-games","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/?p=82425","title":{"rendered":"Sharf ready for 20th World Maccabiah Games"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Men’s Ice Hockey Rising Sophomore Competing for Team USA in Israel<\/em><\/p>\n

Colgate men\u2019s ice hockey rising sophomore Ben Sharf (Williamsville, New York) is in Israel preparing with the Maccabi USA open men\u2019s ice hockey team for the 20th<\/sup>\u00a0World Maccabiah Games from\u00a0July 4-18, 2017<\/span>.<\/p>\n

Sharf was named to the team back in March, joining 21 other players on the roster with nine from Division I college hockey and the only player from ECAC Hockey.<\/p>\n

This is Sharf\u2019s second time competing for Team USA at the World Maccabiah Games after he competed in the 19th<\/sup>\u00a0edition of the tournament back in 2013 where the USA won the silver medal.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe just set down in Israel for the 2017 World Maccabi Games. After a long 9 hour flight it has finally set in that I was given a second opportunity to represent my country,\u201d Sharf said. \u201cMy dad was born and raised in Israel so to be able to travel to the country for 3 weeks to play the game I love and spend quality time with my family and friends is a dream come true.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen coach Greg Gardner gave me a call to offer me a spot on the team for the upcoming games, I was ecstatic to get another shot at gold. We lost to team Canada in the finals in 2013 so I think the lack of success last tournament gave me the will power to come back again.\u201d<\/p>\n

The World Maccabiah Games features 8,750 Jewish Athletes from 80 countries around the world participating in 43 sports. In between games and practice, the players are there to experience the culture in Israel and learn.<\/p>\n

\u201cOf course we are all here to travel around Israel and have a memorable time with a great group of guys, but at the end of the day we all came to win,\u201d Sharf said. \u201cWhen Coach Gardner asked the group on day one what we wanted to get out of the this tournament, the same two answers kept coming up: to win and have fun. As a group we agreed that in order to have the most fun we can, we need to win.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sharf and Team USA fell to Canada in 2013, giving the players donning the red, white and blue an extra bit of motivation heading into the 2017 World Maccabiah Games. But before the tournament begins, the players are practicing hard and bonding with one another.<\/p>\n

\u201cI look forward to spending the next couple weeks with a great group of guys while connecting with Jewish athletes from around the world,\u201d Sharf said. \u201cI am so use to being the minority on all my teams so it is a cool dynamic to be on a team of strictly Jewish players.\u201d<\/p>\n

The team is practicing for the next week in Tel Aviv before making the roughly one hour drive to Jerusalem to being play against Maccabi Canada July 5. Puck drop is slated for\u00a05 p.m.<\/span>\u00a0local time and\u00a010 a.m. ET<\/span>. All games of the tournament will be played at the Pais Arena.<\/p>\n

Continue checking GoColgateRaiders.com for Sharf\u2019s blog of his experience at the World Maccabiah Games, as well as for links for live streams to watch the games. Fans can also follow more of Sharf\u2019s journey on Twitter, @Colgate_Hockey, and Instagram, @colgatemenshockey.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Men’s Ice Hockey Rising Sophomore Competing for Team USA in Israel Colgate men\u2019s ice hockey rising sophomore Ben Sharf (Williamsville, New York) is in Israel preparing with the Maccabi USA open men\u2019s ice hockey team for the 20th\u00a0World Maccabiah Games from\u00a0July 4-18, 2017. Sharf was named to the team back in March, joining 21 other […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":72332,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[94,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-82425","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","category-top-story"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p43meu-lrr","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/madisoncountycourier.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/ColgateRaiders.jpg?fit=1365%2C1024&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82425","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=82425"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82425\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/72332"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=82425"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=82425"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=82425"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}